Four charged in rappelling protest at NFL game in North Carolina

(Reuters) - Four people have been charged after protesters rappelled from an overhang of a stadium in North Carolina during an NFL game to protest construction of a natural gas export project in Maryland, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said Tuesday.

John Nicholson, 29, David Baghdadi, 38, Angela Vogel, 35, and Erica Madrid, 35, were charged with second-degree trespassing, resisting a public officer and dropping objects at a sporting event, police said.

The protest came during a nationally televised game on Monday night between the Carolina Panthers and the Indianapolis Colts at the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Two protesters unfurled a large banner reading "BoA: Dump Dominion," referring to Bank of America Corp and Dominion Resources Inc, a regional electricity provider that is building a liquefied natural gas export facility at Cove Point on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

After dangling from the upper deck for a short time they came down and were arrested.

The group staging the protest, "We Are Cove Point," said in an online statement that the Dominion Cove Point plant would be "the fourth largest climate polluter in Maryland."

Bank of America was a "major financer" of the facility, the group said.

The Panthers won the National Football League game, 29-26, in overtime.